


Masculine Angst, Heterosexual Vengeance, & the Extremes of Exclusivity: Why Chumbucket Had To Die [Meta]

by osteophage



Category: Mad Max (Video Game 2015)
Genre: Criticism, Heteronormativity, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 16:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30142155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osteophage/pseuds/osteophage
Summary: Metacommentary exploring the thematic implications of the Mad Max video game, its particular construction of masculinity, and why the plot demands the slaughter of a companion.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 2
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Masculine Angst, Heterosexual Vengeance, & the Extremes of Exclusivity: Why Chumbucket Had To Die [Meta]

**Author's Note:**

> Written during the month of March for the [March Meta Matters Challenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/March_Meta_Matters_Challenge).

_Right away, Mary Anne_  
_Flew in from Atlanta_ _  
_ _O_ _n a red-eye midnight flight_  
_She held Wanda's hand_  
_And they worked out a plan_  
_And it didn't take 'em long to decide_  
_That Earl had to die_

"Goodbye Earl," The Chicks

Any fictional character, technically speaking, could live indefinitely if the author let them. They only die when authors make them die – and when they do, it's typically to serve a narrative purpose. When a sympathetic character dies, it's often as a noble sacrifice or to spur another character to revenge. When a villain dies, it's usually in retribution for injustice or as a direct consequence of their misdeeds. It's rare for a major character death to be incidental. These narrative conventions are what lead me to a question that's been bothering me ever since I finished the Mad Max video game:

Why did _Chumbucket_ have to die?

Chumbucket's death calls for explanation because of how it falls outside the typical deployment of major character death. Chumbucket is not a particularly malicious person, and while he's made some cowardly choices, he's not really positioned as an antagonist or an enemy to be defeated. Yet neither is he characterized favorably as someone worth being mourned or avenged. On the contrary, the one responsible for his death is Max himself, the player character. At the conclusion of the main story, the player is _forced_ to kill him as an unavoidable part of any completed playthrough. The game permits no other choice. So I ask again:

Why did Chumbucket _have_ to die?

In order to explore this question, it's necessary to step back and contextualize his death within the wider scope of the story. The game follows the main character of Max, who is reduced to a stock characterization of angsty, tortured masculinity and who tries to avoid all connection with others. Despite his best efforts to remain emotionally distant, he ends up with a female love interest, and when that love interest gets fridged, he sets out on the path of revenge. It’s this basic plotline which ends up leading to Chumbucket’s death, even though Chumbucket isn’t the one who killed her. In the following analysis, I float three separate theories to explain Chumbucket’s death and conclude that in effect, it functions as an expression heteronormative values.

### Max’s Characterization: Masculine Angst & Individualism

We need to start off with one thing right off the bat:

The main villain of this game is called Scrotus. I am not even making this up. That's his actual name and people say it a lot. There's also a character named Cocka Locka and you could almost mistake that for just some weird Australian thing if there weren't also a character named Rim Jobbie.

With that said, all those guys are villains, so if the villains are the ones with the overtly phallic and testicular nomenclature, that means hypermasculinity is being framed as villainous, right? Wrong.

Rather than repudiating hypermasculinity by aligning it with the villains alone, **t** **he game also characterizes Max** **in line with** **certain** **masculine** **ideals,** **amplifying** **them to absurdity** **.** The defining traits of his personality in this game include a two millimeter emotional range, a lack of compassion for others, a driving core of classical angst, and a philosophy of brooding individualism.

Behaviorally, Max’s characterization falls back on the most shallow possible rendering of an **angsty** **action** **man**. He's gruff, he's tough, he’s emotionally distant, you get the picture.

Morally, Max avoids committing himself to any higher cause. **He’s a largely callous and self-serving character,** and what differentiates him from the villains is less the classic villain/hero divide than a contrast of enthusiastic villainous _fananticism_ vs. grim-faced personal _ambivalence._ Throughout the game, Max wavers between his adamant disdain for others’ well-being and his occasional, begrudging acts of heroism, usually in the form of violence.

Oh, and there’s also the dog. Scrotus kicks the dog, and Max saves it. So that’s how you know Max is the “good” one, I guess.

The dog is a special exception, though, in that with literally everyone else, **he’s** **reluctant** **to get involved if he can’t frame it in transactional terms.** Even when a woman asks him to rescue her kidnapped _child,_ his first response is to tell her he doesn’t owe her anything.

 **Narratively, Max’s callousness is framed as** **an expression** **of his own personal pain** – the sort of brooding, tortured masculinity associated with characters like Batman and BtVS Angel. The opening narration describes him as “truly broken” – he is “one who had lost all, over and over, and to this he had lost his sanity. His was a never-ending journey away from the phantoms of his past.”

 **This manly trauma is** **the driving factor behind most of his choices.** From the beginning, it’s cited as the reason for his (initial) main goal in the game: “He believed he could silence the cacophony in his mind and find peace beyond a place he called the Plains of Silence.” At times he seems ambivalent about whether this is actually the best plan, but regardless, “resolving his pain” is always the core of his motivation.

 _ **Because**_ **“resolving his pain” (and protecting himself from further pain) is his one and only priority, Max views any deeper connections with others as a liability.** Losing his wife and daughter is implied to be what “broke” him, after all, and he doesn’t want to risk getting close to anyone again. Whenever various quests in the game have him helping other people, it’s either strictly utilitarian or only reluctantly. ["People get in my way,"](https://youtu.be/u3q56YP3PmE?t=360) he says. And friends? "[No friends.](https://youtu.be/u3q56YP3PmE?t=556) They only mean trouble."

### Max’s Key Relationships

For the purposes of this analysis, there are three major characters besides Max to know about: Scrotus, Hope, and Chumbucket.

 **Scrotus is** **his** **enemy.** As a son of Immortan Joe, he’s a powerful warlord and the major villain of the game. Max hates Scrotus because he stole his car, and Scrotus hates Max because Max stole his fuel and then took a chainsaw to his head. This is all established in [the opening cutscen](https://youtu.be/8QAbgNx3mrg?t=175)[e](https://youtu.be/8QAbgNx3mrg?t=175) if you want to see (cw: gore, obviously).

 **Hope is** **his** **love interest.** She’s a sex slave and the mother to a young child named Glory, first introduced as prisoners in a cage. Hope seems to see something in Max, for some reason, and she even kisses him at one point. Max acts like he’s not into it, because he’s trying to avoid attachments and all that, but [a dream sequence](https://youtu.be/Z6RAjrnwacY?t=154) conveys that he’s attracted to her. Her role in the story is basically to give out fetch quests and serve as a token of Max's heterosexuality.

 **Chumbucket is** **his** **mechanic.** He acts the role a devoted manservant and religious fanatic who worships Max as a “saint.” Max keeps Chumbucket around for his mechanical skills but otherwise looks down on the man, and he barely interacts with him except to bark orders and boss him around. For much of the game, Chumbucket is Max’s constant companion, riding along in the back of Max's car, firing the vehicle's weapons, delivering gameplay hints, calling out warnings, and doing repairs on the car whenever necessary. The two spend a lot of time around each other, but they are not friends.

### Max’s Conflicting Drives & The Heterosexual Vengeance Plot

Chumbucket’s death takes place within the context of what I’m calling a **heterosexual vengeance plot** : the type of generic plot arc that triggers when a man’s female love interest gets [fridged](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Refrigerators), motivating him to go after the murderer and try to kill him in revenge. In the context of this particular game, though, the heterosexual vengeance plot is thematically situated in relation to two conflicting drives. On the one hand, Max is obsessively focused on building and upgrading a car that he can use to cross the Plains of Silence – which he thinks will allow him to “find peace” and end his pain. On the other hand, he’s also a heterosexual man, and despite resisting Hope’s advances, Max is obviously drawn to her. **Both of these (cars and** **women** **) are conventionally masculine drives.** **I** **n the later stages of the game,** **however,** **the plot actually begins to pit the two against each other in order to amplify Max’s angsty, tortured masculinity.**

The main series of events goes like this: 

Although Max and Chumbucket have been working together, eventually their plans begin to diverge, as indicated by [this conversation](https://youtu.be/90GkAAIM6GI?t=16245) about the car they’ve been building together.

> **Chumbucket:** Don't belay me for sayin', Saint... But we should really not risk the Opus now she's complete... We should focus on finishing the final touches... The Angel beckons!
> 
> **Max:** Car ain't done.
> 
> **Chumbucket:** Yeah! Yeah, only a few tweaks now...
> 
> **Max:** Need two big fuel tanks to go in the back. For the drive across the Plains of Silence.
> 
> **Chumbucket:** But... but that's not part of the design. Where will I, faithful Chumbucket, go? Where do I fit? Saint? ...Saint?! ...Answer me!

Since the back of the car is where Chumbucket rides, the implication here is that Max plans to abandon him.

Shortly after this exchange, Chumbucket runs away. They two of them have entered Buzzard territory, which makes Chumbucket very nervous, especially when he hears the Buzzards coming after him. So while Max is off on foot, Chumbucket gets scared, takes off with the car, and [leaves Max behind](https://youtu.be/TevamD4J_oM?t=703) – preemptively abandoning him first.

 **This is where** **Max’s two primary drives** **come** **into conflict** **.** With Chumbucket gone, Max steals a different car, drives back, and drops off the newly-rescued child (Glory) with her mother, Hope. Then he immediately wants to set out again and go get his car back – but [Hope tries to talk him out of ](https://youtu.be/JYanscdOOO4?t=60)[it](https://youtu.be/JYanscdOOO4?t=60).

> **Hope:** Your machine is gone, you were betrayed. So what? Stay with us. Make a life. When are you going to have another chance?
> 
> **Max:** Our contract is done.
> 
> **Glory:** *puts a snowglobe in his car* It's a present. For you.
> 
> **Max:** *takes it out and drops it*
> 
> **Hope:** Together we can build more than a life raft.

Max drives off and leaves them behind anyway. **In narrative terms, this represents choosing to prioritize** **the** **car over the possibility of becoming a husband and a father to Hope and Glory.**

The narrative then punishes him for this choice by killing them off in his absence. Once Max catches up to Chumbucket, he finds out that Scrotus’ second-in-command, Stank Gum, has already gotten to him first and beaten information out of him. "Found your monkey," Stank Gumsays, "And that monkey was made to sing! About you... a woman, a child... A whole little family! [...] Lord Scrotus is gonna hurt you more than you can ever hurt me." In the next scene, Max rushes back to Hope and Glory only to find that they’ve been brutally murdered.

This revelation renders the Plains of Silence plan irrelevant and sets Max on the path of revenge. In a cutscene, Max angrily drives off and imagines the little girl telling him to “Paint my name in blood across the lands.” After the scene ends, Max [makes his new resolution](https://youtu.be/GA9CIBkis5s?t=403): “He murdered them. Scrotus. I will have his blood. I must find him and end him.”

### Three Theories on Why Chumbucket Had to Die

Because of how the game pits heterosexuality and cars against each other, Max trying to revenge is what gets Chumbucket killed in a way that goes like this. In the final showdown, Scrotus’ truck ends up teetering on the edge of a cliff, and Max – inexplicably – decides that the way to finish him off is to ram the truck off the cliff with his own car. This would destroy the car, of course, which is why Chumbucket refuses to allow it. As a religious fanatic about this particular car, he would sooner lay down his own life than let the car be sacrificed. And so [that’s exactly what he does](https://youtu.be/MDtW74QnfVk?t=49). He refuses to get off the hood, and he dies.

Logistically speaking, this makes no sense. Max had access to other weapons (like the explosive harpoon) that he could have used if the game hadn’t disabled the option. It’s not like this was his only resort. The game _intentionally_ hems in the player to ram the truck and force Chumbucket’s death. Why?

These are the three theories I could come up with.

#### Theory One: Chumbucket Deserved It

The most simplistic of these theories would be that Chumbucket died as punishment for betrayal. I think this is a reading that some people might opt for, given how Chumbucket is implicated in Hope and Glory’s deaths. You could certainly make the case that he’s a coward and deserves some form of comeuppance.

I find this theory less compelling, though, because it’s not presented that way from Max’s point of view. Max doesn’t really treat Chumbucket as a target for revenge. He doesn’t murder him as soon as he catches up to him or as soon as he finds out about Hope and Glory’s deaths, and his furious rant about how “He [Scrotus] murdered them” doesn’t place any of the blame on Chumbucket. Nobody else steps in to point the finger at Chumbucket, either. His role in these events is just not given that kind of weight.

#### Theory Two: Chumbucket Represents Obsession with the Car

An interpretation that’s more supported by the text would engage with how the story thematically pits Chumbucket and Hope against each other. In Chumbucket’s death scene, Max imagines Hope’s voice egging him on while Chumbucket begs for him to stop. As Chumbucket wails, “Please spare her [the car],” Max [imagines Hope's voice saying](https://youtu.be/EPtGjZt80To?t=71), “He must be killed. He must be stopped. This sacrifice is yours to make.” In this way, the narrative situates Max within a conflict between everything Chumbucket represents (the car) and everything Hope represents (the prospect of becoming a husband and father). Max must choose between these two conflicting loyalties. **By destroying** **the** **car** **(and Chumbucket by association)** **in attempt** **at avenging** **Hope** **, Max atones for his prior choice to abandon her.**

There’s just a couple of issues with this theory, the first of which being that the whole “smash Scrotus with the car” plan was ridiculous anyway and doesn’t even work. Chumbucket dies, but Scrotus survives, and then Max has to fight him again on foot. It makes the whole sacrifice feel extremely pointless.

Besides that, Chumbucket is _not_ associated with Max’s own motives thematically. To the contrary, they actually have very conflicting ideas about the car and what it should be used for. If Max had followed through on his Plains of Silence plan, that would have entailed parting ways with Chumbucket.

In any case, “don’t care too much about your car” is a strange moral for a game which puts far less effort into plot and characterization than it does into customization options for your car. This _entire game_ is about grinding and fighting your way through the world to earn new upgrades for your car. Genuinely, I cannot emphasize enough how much this game expects you to care about customizing and collecting cars. In a game that’s all about cars, moralizing against being a gearhead doesn’t feel insightful or profound – it feels pretentious, like a FPS wagging its finger at you for choosing to shoot people.

As [Noah Caldwell-Gervais](https://youtu.be/MFzp13vbfOw?t=2193) put it:

> This [the Opus] is [Chumbucket’s] life’s work – and **it is the player’s life’s work** as far as the game is concerned. I spent _sixty_ hours – some hours of which I wasn’t even having any fun with – in a desperate bid to [...] unlock all the upgrades, building the Opus up to how it is now. And now the game says, ‘Destroy the Opus, and Chum along with it, for your revenge!’ It all happens so damn quickly, too. You’re supposed to be playing as Max, and suddenly, at the literal climax, Max is doing something that the player knows very well doesn’t even make sense within the game’s systems. Those systems are just suspended for the sake of this cutscene, for the sake of what they wanted to do as a dramatic moment. So… you do that. You kill Chumbucket, you destroy his Opus – your Opus – and out of the back of the war rig pops Max’s old car, the Interceptor, for a boss fight. For a really easy boss fight. It is a climax without drama – **video game nonsense mixed with self-serious presentation that makes expendable the player’s entire game-long** **time and** **resource investment.** […] It’s possibly the most singularly demotivational ending in an open-world game that I have ever seen.

#### Theory Three: Chumbucket Intrudes on Obligation to Hope

Let’s consider a revised version of the second theory: **Max kills Chumbucket and destroys the car** **out of** **the depths of his devotion to Hope.** It’s not just the car itself at issue, but the plot utility of having someone else jump in front of Max to stop him. By ignoring Chumbucket and pressing ahead, Max demonstrates that he will sacrifice anything and anyone to get his revenge.

For Max, the car itself is unimportant because the car was only ever a means to an end. His main goal is to find some way to soothe or escape his [Man Pain](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Manpain), taking either the Plains of Silence route (for which he needs the car) or the Husband/Father route (for which he needs Hope and Glory). The latter of these is endorsed by Griffa, his spiritual advisor – [“](https://youtu.be/u3q56YP3PmE?t=577)[T](https://youtu.be/u3q56YP3PmE?t=577)[hat which has been broken can be mended by love only”](https://youtu.be/u3q56YP3PmE?t=577) – and so that “love” is framed as the only real way forward.

Now that the Husband/Father option has been snatched out from under him, though, Max is sadder and madder than ever, which means that (in true Man Pain fashion) he needs someone to take it out on. The extremity of his choices works to demonstrate the extremity of his pain.

If you accept this formula, then any kind of hesitation or regard for anyone else would undermine the completeness of that extremity. If Max were to hold back because of Chumbucket, for instance, then that would show the least shred of regard for the man’s well-being. By making sure that can’t happen in this scene, the game ensures that **heterosexual vengeance is proven as Max’s one and** _ **only**_ **priority.** Only Hope and Glory are allowed to matter. Only they get to be the sole exception to his callousness. This is essentially a more extreme form of the idea that true love should be monogamous – here even basic _regard for life_ is restricted and exclusive.

So I want you to understand, when I say that this ending hurt, that doesn’t really have much to do with how I feel about Chumbucket himself as a character. It’s more to do with **this story’s exclusion of non-heterosexual/non-familial relationships from the possibility of even the most meager respect or regard, let alone love and care.** To me, Chumbucket’s death highlights how I fall outside the bounds of worth in this kind of narrative. I am neither a paragon of straight male masculinity nor a straight man’s love interest. And if Chumbucket’s life is this disposable in the name of heterosexual family, then what does that say about mine?

### Conclusion

“People get in my way,” Max says, and Chumbucket, unfortunately, is people. In its plot and thematic implications, _Mad Max_ (2015) is a hypermasculine video game that so thoroughly defines connection as vulnerability, it refuses to allow its protagonist to care about any other human being apart from his love interest and her child. What makes this heteronormative isn’t just that Max is a man and Hope is a woman, but that this man/woman/child family unit is singled out as the only exception to his callousness and the only possibility of healing – even though there was ample time for him to bond with Chumbucket, too, if Max had been open to seeing him as anything more than a tool. By having Max kill Chumbucket in the course of getting revenge, the game ensures you understand that Max values Hope/Glory and no one else at all.


End file.
